Dear Staff, Below you will find this week's "Sunday Shares." Take a look at what you can, and come back to the rest by the end of the week. Online Resources and a Tool: 1. Great Websites for Kids -- Search content area resources online. This site is sponsored by The Association for Library Services to Children. 2. SoundCloud -- Create a podcast with your students. With the MacBooks, we can easily create podcasts using GarageBand. Then, upload them to SoundCloud to create a radio series. Many students have used podcasts to review books. Check out these podcast lesson ideas from ReadWriteThink: Podcasts Nuts and Bolts of Creating a Podcasts. Online Article/Podcast to Make you Think: Helping Kids Cross the Digital Divide--This podcast from CNN Radio provides a look into higher-level use of digital tools for learning. In this podcast, they discuss how it is necessary to end the digital divide and provide students with active use of technology. Lou Lahana, the teacher highlighted within the article, is on a mission to help these kids go from being consumers of digital products to being content creators – to end ‘digital inequality.’ Soon, we will gain access to the iPad or MacBook carts. To use them effectively, engage students in active use of web-based tools and allow them to create projects, which demonstrate learning. We need to shift from passive to active use of technology tools for learning. ICE Conference: I was able to talk with a few people from the Indiana Department of Education's E-Learning staff members. There is an interesting E-Learning Certification program coming up in the state of Indiana. If interested, please join me in the certification process, and we can work on it together. Here are a couple of items to share from their presentation: 1. DOE's E-Learning presentation slides 2. E-Learning Book Club 3. Twitter Chats: search the hashtag #inelearn chats on Wednesday at 3:30 pm Twitter and Sharing Resources: As usual, join me on Twitter and/or Pinterest to locate educational resources. If you find resources worth sharing, send them my way, and I will share them with the staff and cite your contribution. Thank you for all the hard work you do every week. I wasn't in the classroom as much this week because of another project, but I still wanted to share a few success stories.
1. 2.
3. 4.
5.
Amanda Haskins had an article in the NWI Times. She shared her class' participation with Global Read Aloud. Great idea sharing with the press! To all the Global Read Aloud participants, awesome work connecting your students globally. We are entering the third week, and I want to thank everyone for participating. I would like to make it to everyone's class to get some pictures to share with everyone. Thank you to all the GRA participants. Last time I was in Robyn Whitworth's class, I noticed her using the SMART Board as a center during word work. Keep creating those interactive SMART Board lessons! Nicole Nigh was using a WebQuest with her students to learn about the election process. She posted the WebQuest through Moodle, and I witnessed her students actively engaged in the collaborative research process. Nicole really helped boost a student's confidence by affirming the resource he located. He was sitting off to the side and she made sure his group was aware of his work. Great teaching and use of technology! Jill Sayers also deserves mention for her hard work on an art project, which utilized the SMART Board and Keynote. I created a video presentation of her project with iMovie on my iPhone. This would be a great way to share projects with parents or promote student use of iMovie. Awesome use of the SMART Board Jill!
-- Dan Gibson